Growth Characteristics Of Children Aged 2-17 Years With Food Allergy

Abstract

Children with food allergy may have limitations in diet and intake that impact growth. Research at this time has focused on cohorts of children with documented food allergy to characterize nutritional status and growth parameters, but population wide investigations are lacking. Nationally representative data from The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005-2006 were used to analyze anthropometric measurements in 2911 children aged 2-17. Height, weight and BMI for age were calculated using EpiInfo (CDC). Differences in these measures between those with and without likely food allergy (defined as milk, egg or peanut IgE above the 95% PPV) were analyzed by linear and logistic regression, adjusting for age, gender, race/ethnicity and family income. 1% of children had IgE levels highly suggestive of food allergy (0.03% milk, 0.3% egg and 0.8% peanut). The mean BMI percentile for these children was 10.8% less than for the general population (95% CI: 0.8-20.9% p= 0.04). 15% of those with likely food allergy had a BMI percentile ≤ 10th percentile, compared to 6% of those without likely food allergy (adjusted OR: 2.76, 95% 1.10- 6.90: p=0.03). However, height for age percentile was not lower for this group (p=0.99) and there were not significant differences in plasma levels of total or HDL cholesterol (p=0.95 and 0.29, respectively), or vitamin D (p=0.89). Children with likely food allergy have lower BMI than the general population, but height appears to be unaffected. Whether these children have more subtle nutritional deficiencies should be investigated.